Saturday, May 30, 2015

Lena Dunham on Girls' lack of diversity

While speaking on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Comedy Actress Roundtable, Dunham explained, “I had been thinking so much about sort of representing weirdo girls and chubby girls and strange half-Jews that I had forgotten that there was an entire world of women who were being underserved.”

She said she learned that, “It is our job as creators to represent more than our own experience and to represent more than what we’ve seen.” She also expressed gratitude toward those who made her aware of her duty, saying, “It ultimately made the show better and made me stronger as a feminist and an activist and a thinker.”

It's nice that she's addressing this, but I can't help but see it as any more than performative. And I disagree with her. The onus should be on the networks to develop and promote more shows written, produced and staring minorities rather than individual writers thinking they have a "duty" to create characters that represent every possible identity category. (Also being a good feminist isn't analogous with being a good writer.)